


Star Ship

by lost_spook



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 500 prompts, Ficlet, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 00:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1622381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Captains talk to their ships, of course.  It’s just that Janeway feels sure hers talks back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Ship

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Paranoidangel in the [500 Prompts Meme](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/300554.html) \- Prompt 411: She’ll be a star now, I will follow her lead – Kathryn Janeway.

There were moments when they’d made it through impossible odds – again – and the Captain, standing by Tom at the helm, would kiss her fingers to her ship in thanks.

“Do you two want a moment alone?” Tom would say, and grin at her.

She’d laugh in return, and think that sometimes she suspected her ship was having a fling with her pilot behind her Captain’s back. But then, a starship was big enough to encompass a relationship with every member of her crew: that was one of the nice things about it.

*

Of course, most captains felt a bond with their ships. She knew that; she was fully aware that it wasn’t entirely logical – might even border on the ridiculous – but she still felt that Voyager was special. Other Captains talked to their ships, she had that on pretty good authority. It was just that Janeway was sure that Voyager talked back.

Not in so many words, of course. If she heard voices coming out of the walls, she’d be down to sickbay faster than the Doctor could ask her to state the nature of the medical emergency, but in other ways, in small movements, and at the times it counted, Voyager responded to her touch. It was her ship, she was the ship’s captain; it was a two-way thing.

And she was willing to bet that other Captains who talked to their ships probably stopped short of rows with their replicators. Janeway got into an argument with hers every time it refused her coffee or burnt the dinner again. She should leave it alone by now, but she always wound up poking around in its inner workings. And, against all logic, the darned thing remained every bit as stubborn as she was.

But, she thought, what would any relationship be without a few flaws to iron out?

*

“She’s not alive, you know,” Chakotay said, when they were in her quarters, and Janeway had paused mid-conversation to touch the hull and apologise to Voyager for doubting her capabilities. “At least, not that I’ve noticed.”

Janeway turned back around. “Are you sure?” she said in mock-solemnity, or possibly solemn mockery. “All that bio neural circuitry, capable of limited adaptation, in use for all these years?” And if they’d learned anything over that time, it was that sentience was a difficult thing to make snap judgments about.

“Well,” said Chakotay, amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth, “of course, if I’m interrupting something, I can go.”

She laughed. “Don’t you dare, Commander. I’ve managed to coax something edible out of the replicator. You won’t want to miss this. It might never happen again.”

“And if I remember rightly, that was what you said two weeks ago, and it turned out there’d been a malfunction. Or at least, I’ve never eaten chicken that tasted like strawberry before.”

“It was novel, you’ve got to give us that,” said Janeway, moving across to pat the obstinate replicator. “Anyway, I mean it this time.”

Chakotay smiled. “In that case – provided Voyager doesn’t mind sharing you for the moment –”

“Oh, she never minds,” said Janeway. “She’s not the jealous type.”

“Just difficult about her share of the domestic chores?”

“Something like that,” Janeway said, and shared a smile with her ship. Living on a starship took trust, a bit of give and take, and a lot of work, but it was more than worth it. What was that but a relationship? And as relationships go, this one went as far as the Delta Quadrant and back.


End file.
